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IPC question for Rick Massarini

Hi Rick! I know you've worked IPC for quite a few years and was wondering how that works? Approx. how many rooms is judging going on in? If you are there at the judging will they have a notebook of what made it and what didn't (like at SW/TX)? Is there a way to know which room your images are being judged in (If they do is it listed by last name or print case number?) I know it can take some time to post to the web. I am really tempted to try to drive out and watch this year but since I will only be home from NC school for a week at that point,not sure if I will be able to. Also, I have images I may enter in "Artist" but if they don't do well there, will re-enter them in 'Open" at SW/TX just 5 1/2 weeks after IPC, so the sooner I know how I did the better. I would love to help out in the print room one of these days!

Thanks for any feed back!

Tracye Gibson, M. Photog.www.Tracye.smugmug.com
Talent is the ability to do hard work in a consistently constructive direction over a long period of time" - James Whistler

Re: IPC question for Rick Massarini

Originally Posted by TracyeGibson

Hi Rick! I know you've worked IPC for quite a few years and was wondering how that works? Approx. how many rooms is judging going on in? If you are there at the judging will they have a notebook of what made it and what didn't (like at SW/TX)? Is there a way to know which room your images are being judged in (If they do is it listed by last name or print case number?) I know it can take some time to post to the web. I am really tempted to try to drive out and watch this year but since I will only be home from NC school for a week at that point,not sure if I will be able to. Also, I have images I may enter in "Artist" but if they don't do well there, will re-enter them in 'Open" at SW/TX just 5 1/2 weeks after IPC, so the sooner I know how I did the better. I would love to help out in the print room one of these days!

Thanks for any feed back!

If you're interested in working at the IPC, just let us know for sure - I'm sure we can fit you into a room somewhere for a while. I'm not sure about the service merit, since most of the volunteers who work the IPC volunteer for the full five days, and receive only 2 merits for the full week, I'm not sure if you would get a merit for only one day. We have a crew of about 30 student workers there to staff the rooms, so we'll really not be short-handed.

The prints are judged in a totally random manner with attention being paid only to the category - no separation by print case numbers or name - everything is randomly juggled. A single print case may have it's prints judged in different rooms and on different days. The only preference that is given is to the images that have critiques requested - and for logistical reasons only - the critique prints are judged at the beginning of the judging to get the prints judged early enough in the week to allow the jurors time to critique them. If a ton of critique prints were to be judged late on the last day, there would be no time for the judges to critique the images at the end. If you're hoping to see your images judged - good luck - about all we can do is tell you what rooms are running what categories - the prints can come up anytime and in any room. It's not set up like SWPPA where the judging is done in a meeting room in front of a large audience with the last name starting with A-L in one room and M-Z in another. It's totally random here, and the IPC judging is done at a community college in small classrooms - we sometimes have a small audience, but that's seldom the case, usually it's just the judges, print handlers and a couple of people observing (see photo). Usually, the audience consists of members of the judging class who are there observing the process.

The digital submissions are handled in the same way with the images from any category being selected by the computer in a totally random manner, so there's no way to tell where an image will come up or when - the only preference being that critique images will be selected for judging before the non-critique ones.

There is no notebook of results. The images are judged and the results instantly and automatically recorded in the computer by the scoring system. The only way to look up a score is to go into the computer, and only a few people have access, the PEC Chair, the PEC Administrator, and the PPA IT staff person. If I need info from the computer, I get the IT guy to pull it for me. Each room captain, who is a JC or a JC in training, has a binder which is kept as a hard copy backup, but access to the binders is limited to the room captains and the PEC Chair.

If you are submitting digitally, there is no way to find out your results early - they are all in the computer and no one can get them. If you are submitting prints, the prints will have the score coded on the back, so if you are working at the IPC, there is a possibility of finding your print in the sorting room and finding the result that way. Prints that are not accepted go directly to the sorting room. Prints that are accepted for Merit go to the Loan room before going to the sorting room. So finding your print in the sorting room after the first day is usually only for non accepted images since accepted images need to be judged for Loan, and we don't usually get a Loan panel started until the second day.

If you're concerned about a quick report on your scores, the good news is that the scores have been posted relatively fast for the last couple of years. Two years ago, the results were on the website before I got on the plane to come home from the judging on Thursday - last year it took only a little longer to get the results up on the website. The results aren't posted until they are checked by the IT guys to make sure all the results are right.

How many rooms that will be running will depend on logistics and on which day it is. This is the routine from past years, but things change from year to year depending on the number of digital entries vs the number of prints, so the allocation of rooms and what they'll be judging will change from day to day and from morning to afternoon. The judging panels are constantly juggled so that there is seldom the same mix of people on a panel in the afternoon as was that morning. The assignment of judges is constantly randomly juggled so that some of the jurors who were judging on a print panel for Merit in the morning may be on a digital panel that afternoon, and some may be on a Loan panel.

Saturday is set-up day.

On Sunday, we usually start off with one room judging digital wedding albums for Merit and moving on to Loan and one or two rooms judging digital images for Merit depending on the jurors available. One or two rooms usually start judging Photographic Open Critique prints for Merit, and one room judging EI or Commercial and flipping over to the other category later in the day depending on when the digital judging rooms become available for the digital EI judging.

On Monday, the Commercial and Electronic Imaging is usually done, so the jurors who would have been assigned to that panel are now free for other assignment, so usually we try to get a Loan panel started sometime on Monday to get the Critique Merit prints and digital images through the Loan judging process so that the accepted prints can be critiqued when judges are available. Usually on Monday we have two panels judging digital images for Merit, two panels running Prints for merit, and one panel judging for Loan - the panel may be moved from print to digital depending on logistics - things are constantly changing with the addition of digital judging. Any judges who are free and not assigned to a panel will be moved to the critique room to start critiquing the images that were not accepted. Usually we will have completed judging the images that need critiques sometime on Monday and the rooms move on to those which do not require critiques.

On Tuesday, since the accepted and Loan critique prints have generally been completed and we know the final score, they can be critiqued. Critiquing gets really rolling on Tuesday. We are usually still running two to four panels for Merit mixed between prints and digital, along with one or two Loan Panels, depending on judges available. The images being judged today are usually those which do not require critiques

On Wednesday, we are usually in the wrap up stage. We are usually down to two panels judging for merit and running two panels on the Loan judging.
After the judging is completed, usually around noon, and all of the prints are in the sorting room and sorted by number, a list of accepted and non-accepted prints is generated. We assign workers in two person teams to check the prints in the sorting room to make sure that none of the prints are mis-sorted into the wrong side of the room.
We take special pain to assure that we do not have any accepted prints sorted in with the non-accepted prints since only the crates of accepted prints are going to the convention - and we don't want anyone walking around the print exhibit looking for their print only to find out that it was mixed in with the non-accepted ones and is sitting in a crate at PPA HQ. After all of the prints are accounted for, we pack the prints back up into the shipping crates for the trip back to PPA Headquarters.

Here's a photo of how your prints are transported to and from the judging - this is a cart that was in the EI/Commercial room a couple of years ago. Each cart holds approx 400 prints. Usually the prints fill the cart all the way across on both top and bottom sections. The prints are packed tight before being transported. For smaller categories, and in a situation where the cart is not full of prints, the extra open space is filled with bubble wrap packing, bed sheets that we use for covering the tables, and misc equipment to take up the extra space so the prints don't slide around in transport. The space above the prints is also filled to prevent prints moving around in transit. The carts are 24" deep to accommodate the largest size print that is allowed. A large plywood door covers the front of the cart, and the carts are wrapped with plastic shrink wrap to keep them relatively waterproof in transit. The carts are filled at PPA Headquarters when PPA staff unpack the print shipping cases. Prints from a single maker go into separate carts or for the smaller categories, into separate sections of the same cart. Carts are wheeled into the appropriate judging room and the prints go up on the turntable right out of the shipping carts. After the judging is over, the prints are reloaded into the carts for return to PPA Headquarters with the accepted images going into one set of carts and the non-accepted ones into another. Only accepted prints are sent to the convention for exhibit - non-accepted images are stored at PPA HQ until it's time to repack the print cases.

Re: IPC question for Rick Massarini

Wow!!! Thanks for all the great info! Not sure if I will be able to help out this year, like I said, since I will not be home long from NC school before this starts, but REALLY want to at some point! 'IF" I can work out logistics for this year, I will let you know. This is really great info! I think it needs to be an article for the PPA mag. I don't think alot of people truely understand al the hard work everyone puts into it!

Thanks!

Tracye Gibson, M. Photog.www.Tracye.smugmug.com
Talent is the ability to do hard work in a consistently constructive direction over a long period of time" - James Whistler

Re: IPC question for Rick Massarini

The same kind of questions have been asked in the past, so I figured that I'd put it all down in one thread so that we can refer others to it in the future. And you're right, maybe we should get something like this written up and published in the magazine so that everyone has a basic understanding of what goes on at the IPC. I may run it past a couple of PEC members and see what they think.

The best way to gain for yourself is to give OF yourself.
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